


Love and Monsters

by lilithilien



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blanket Permission, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-15
Updated: 2008-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:07:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithilien/pseuds/lilithilien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the heart breaks, the mind must follow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> A very different style for me, written for [](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/malfoycest_day/profile)[**malfoycest_day**](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/malfoycest_day/) 2008 for the prompt: _After the war, Draco became involved with Harry Potter amid protests from Harry's friends. They seemed to be very much in love, but Harry found out one day that Draco was using him to free his father from Azkaban._ Dedicated to the very lovely [](http://goddessriss.insanejournal.com/profile)[**goddessriss**](http://goddessriss.insanejournal.com/) on the occasion of her grand entrance into this world! Many, many thanks to my dearest [](http://sarcastic-jo.insanejournal.com/profile)[**sarcastic_jo**](http://sarcastic-jo.insanejournal.com/) for beta and cheering on the twistedness.

Hello ... no, I'm meeting a friend, but she's probably already– oh, yes, there she is.

Luna, I'm so sorry. Have you been waiting for long? You've already finished your coffee, you're sure you don't mind having another? Yes, then, I'll have one too, please, white. Chocolate torte? Oh, why not? It's been a thoroughly awful day, I think I deserve it. Where have I been? Honestly, I hate to admit it; you won't like it at all. Yes, yes, I know, and you're right, it didn't do any good. But I just had to see if he was all right. No one's even seen him since– no one's seen him for two months. No, he wouldn't come out today either, Kreacher answered the door. He called me 'Mudblood' again. "Master wants nothing to do with the Mudblood," he said. Harry used to tell him to stop calling me that. Now I'm starting to wonder if that's how he refers to me too. No, no, you're right. Harry would never do that; I'm just being paranoid.

Here, they brought two forks, you have to help me with this. I'll never eat the whole thing on my own. What's that? Yes, it really has been that long. Two months, almost to the day, although you won't see _that_ occasion marked in the papers. You know Harry hasn't forgotten, though. It must really be terrible, keeping all that inside. No, as far as I know, he's spoken with no one save Kreacher this entire time. Is that why I do what? Keep going back? Honestly, if I thought he'd talk to me, I'd be on his doorstep every single day. But he stopped confiding in me and Ron a long time ago. I guess I go back because &mdash I almost go just to make sure he hasn't cast a new Fidelius charm. Sometimes I wonder if I won't wake up and not remember how to get there. I know, paranoid again. But sometimes I wonder. You weren't here. You didn't see how he was. How he changed.

Of course I blame Malfoy! Why wouldn't I? Not that I think he got what was coming, mind you. Nobody deserved that. But what he did to Harry&mdash I forget, you'd already left for Ecuador by then. I remember writing to you right after Malfoy started coming to the Leaky. You said then that he had some ulterior motive. We didn't doubt that, but we just figured he was trying to worm his way back into society. What better way to do it than by sucking up to Harry? Did you really think there was something more? Merlin, I wish we'd listened. But honestly, we didn't think he was a threat. We all joked about it, Harry included. We weren't particularly nice to him, either. Why should we be? He was still the same spoiled brat he'd always been. Still "my father this" and "my father that." You'd think Lucius being in Azkaban for a year might have put an end to that, but it almost made him worse. If only we'd known then what we do now.

I know, you're right. There's a Muggle saying that's similar: "Hindsight is 20-20." It means– well, it just means you can see more clearly once you have all the facts. Yes, it is pretty obvious. But really, who would have thought that Malfoy could have gotten to Harry that way? I still kick myself when I think about the night it all started. Did I not tell you the whole story? Well, that night Ron and I left to see a film, and Malfoy was there, nursing a glass of wine like always– he did, yes. White wine at the Leaky. It must have been vile stuff. Ron and Harry used to think that was hilarious, back before…

Oh, that night, right. Like I said, Ron and I went to see a film. _Titanic._ You've never heard of the RMS _Titanic_? It was a Muggle ocean liner that was supposed to be unsinkable. No, no spells, it was just the way it was built. Of course it wasn't; it hit an iceberg and sank like a stone, and hundreds of people died. The film? No, it was a romance. Yes, really! That's why Harry didn't want to see it. Ron didn't either, actually, he was just going because I did. And I remember I was happy that it would just be the two of us. That'd been rare ever since Ginny had broken it off.

So Ron and I went to the pictures, and Harry and Draco got pissed at the Leaky, and somehow they ended up back at the Manor. Oh, believe me, we were just as shocked as you are now. Harry didn't want to tell us at first. Can't blame him, really, the way we acted. It wasn't that he was into guys, although I'm sure he thinks it was. Ron was more surprised by that than I was, but really, that didn't bother either of us. We just hated that it was Malfoy, you know? No, he didn't change at all, at least not to us. He was sweet as sugar when Harry was around, but with Ron or me he'd turn into the same creep we knew in school.

A spell? Of course I suspected that, who wouldn't? I read everything I could find on Imperius curses, on love potions, you name it, but nothing quite fit. Of course, it was impossible to find out what was going on. Harry wouldn't tell us anything, he wouldn't hear a single word against Malfoy. He said he was happy, and he acted&mdash well, he acted like he was really in love, head-over-heels in love, more than I'd ever seen him before. No, of course we didn't believe it was real. How could we? And we pushed too hard, I guess, because before long Harry stopped having much of anything to do with us. He shut down worse than he did in fourth year. On those rare occasions he'd come around, Malfoy would be on his heels like a shadow.

I think the next time I saw Harry by himself was on that day– no, not that one, the day before. The day of Lucius' pardon. Of course, I didn't know it was that day; we hadn't seen Harry for a month at that point, and as far as I know it wasn't in the paper&mdashthe Wizengamot didn't like attention when they released Death Eaters&mdashbut I ran into Harry in the atrium. He looked a little ill, and when he told me what he'd done, I knew why. Yeah, he did, he stood up in front of the Wizengamot and told them what an upstanding wizard Lucius Malfoy was. I know, I couldn't believe it either, and with the way Harry was acting, like he was addled– by then I was sure there was some Dark spell at work. There had to be. What else could make Harry testify on Lucius' behalf? But then, you probably read all about that in the _Prophet_ , didn't you? Probably the first time they got something right. That's right, they found residue of an Imperius Curse, mixed with all kinds of other spells and potions. Really Dark stuff, magic the Aurors had never seen before. It was the Imperius that did it, though—at least that was the reason cited at Harry's trial. Ironic that he was spared from Azkaban with the same defence that Lucius used all those years ago, isn't it?

You know, you're the only one who's ever asked me that. Even Ron believes that Harry just managed to shake off Imperius, like he had before. But no, you're right, with all that Dark Magic amplifying it, it did take more—lot more. Malfoy knew exactly what he was doing, that's why it's hard for me to believe he would be so careless– Oh yes, I think he was the one who broke the Imperius Curse, not Harry, although I'm not sure he even realised it at the time. The thing is, Malfoy and Lucius were…

Do you realise, I haven't told anyone about this, not even Ron. _Especially_ not Ron. No, I do want to tell you, but it's– I think I'd better cast a Privacy Charm, I wouldn't want this getting around. Actually, it's amazing it's been kept hushed up for so long. All right, now– well, maybe I should start at the beginning. I said that Harry was addled after the trial. Poor thing, he kept saying, over and over, "I need to find Draco. Where's Draco?" Well, you know the last thing I wanted to do was look for Malfoy. I tried to get him to come home with me, but he refused. He wasn't upset, no, not really, just– more in a daze, I guess. Like he'd been hit with a Confundus Charm. I didn't want him wandering around the Ministry like that, so I ... I told him that I'd help. The last he'd seen of either Malfoy was in the jury chambers, so I suggested we start there, but they were empty. The longer we looked, the more agitated Harry got, like he'd had way too much Pepperup. He almost yelled at me when I asked if he wouldn't rather come back to our house for a while. He insisted we go down to the dungeon, to the holding cells where Lucius had been. I reckoned it'd be a quick trip, that once Lucius was free he'd have gotten as far from those cells as possible.

I don't know if you've ever been to the Ministry dungeon. No, I don't blame you, I wouldn't have gone either, if Harry hadn't dragged me. I get goose pimples just thinking of it now. What's it like? Honestly, it's like stepping back into the Middle Ages, with this maze of corridors hardly wide enough to squeeze through, lit just by torches, and not enough of them, and it smells of damp and– well, like things I'd rather not think about. I had no idea how we'd ever find Malfoy. A person could get lost easily down there, and I'm sure plenty have.

But once we were down there, Harry snapped out of his daze. He had his wand out in front of him like some kind of divining rod, and it took us deeper into the dungeon, past the holding cells to what looked like Muggle interrogation rooms. You've never seen those on the telly? Well, for Muggles they're just two rooms with a two-way mirror in between; people on one side can see in, but the suspect can't see out. The Ministry ones are magic, of course, so you can see anybody you want, wherever they are. Or maybe you can only see people under suspicion, or people who've recently been in prison, I'm still not sure exactly how they work. In any case, when Harry touched his wand to the frame, we saw Malfoy. He was … with his father. No, I mean he was _with_ his father.

Now you get it.

What were they doing? You mean exactly? Well, they were in the Manor, it looked like it must have been Lucius' study, and Malfoy— _Draco_ —was bent over the desk. Lucius was hitting him with a paddle nearly as big as a beater's bat. No, he was naked, as was Lucius. Honest! Not a stitch between them—I could tell you how many ribs Lucius had sticking out, I saw every one. We could hear them, too. I don't know how sound came through the mirror, but we could hear Malfoy saying things, awful things. Oh, like he was filthy for letting Harry touch him, apologising for letting a … a Muggle-lover get near him, begging Lucius to punish him for it. And Lucius, he wasn't holding back at all, and he was– he had an erection, it kept bobbing up and down with every stroke of the paddle. It really was horrible.

I tried to get Harry to leave but he wouldn't move. I don't think he _could_ move; it was like he'd been Stupefied. I can't really blame him, I guess. It'd be traumatic enough even hearing about this, and seeing it– it's hard to believe how realistic these images were. We might as well have been in the same room. We could see Draco's bottom turning bright red, and Lucius' face was just as flushed. He wasn't holding back and Draco was still begging for more. It wasn't until he started crying, really crying, that Lucius stopped.

No, that wasn't it, although I thought so at first. I figured that Lucius would be disgusted and leave. Instead, he picked Malfoy up. Malfoy was all wild limbs, he was a total mess by then, but Lucius carried him just like he was a little boy. He sat down in his leather chair with Draco cradled in his lap. The whole time he was just sobbing his eyes out, but Lucius just rocked him and kissed him. Seeing that&mdash it was even more awful to watch that than what he'd been doing before. He was kissing him and telling Draco that he'd done well, that he didn't blame him, that he'd just been following the plan– yes, he kept saying exactly that, that the plan had worked and that he'd still be in Azkaban if Draco hadn't done it.

Harry? Harry was just staring, he wasn't even reacting to what was happening. His expression was completely blank. I tried to pull him out of the room, but his feet were like lead, I couldn't budge him. He wouldn't even look at me. And I&mdash I was having trouble looking away, too.

I wish that was all, but no, it wasn't. I– I said that Lucius had an erection earlier. I didn't mention that Draco did, too. He'd been turned on while his father was hitting him. It faded while he was crying, but then Lucius, he started touching him. And kissing him, not like a father at all, like– yeah, like a lover. And Draco was kissing him back, and moving so that Lucius could touch him more, and making these sounds like– well, like he was in ecstasy, really. And Lucius was hard again, too. It'd be impossible not to be, I suppose, with someone rubbing against you that way, but … with your own son? It was so– yeah, perverse, that's it. That's exactly it.

I– I said I had trouble looking away. Merlin, I feel terrible just admitting this but … I couldn't stop watching. I'd never seen two men make love before. Yes, that's what it was, making love, there's nothing else you could call it, so it was partly curiosity, I'm sure that's why I was watching so closely when Draco straddled Lucius' lap. But it was more than the mechanics of it, that's not the reason I was so … hypnotised. It was horrible, everything about it was so wrong, but at the same time, it looked like&mdash _they_ looked like they were _supposed_ to be like that. They were so similar they could almost be twins, with Draco's hair grown out long and Lucius still thin from Azkaban. And Draco was sliding up and down, and making these noises like he wanted more of his father inside him, and they were looking at each other like– is it awful to admit I was almost envious of them? I'd do anything to have Ron look at me like that, like I was everything and nothing else mattered.

And I kept wondering what Harry must be feeling, to see that look between them, and to know that they'd used him like that. Whether spell-induced or not, I think he really did care about Malfoy. His heart must have broken then, and it was that, I believe, that shattered Malfoy's spells. Why? Well, I can't say for sure, but my theory is that some of them must have been love spells. When Harry's heart broke, they must have come unravelled. I'm glad that makes sense to you, too; it's the only explanation I could come up with for Harry's sudden change. Yes, Lucius and Malfoy had only just finished when Harry said, "Let's go," and he sounded completely different than he had before, focused and in control. Not angry, which surprised me, but … hard.

You know, if I had a time-turner, I'd go back to that very moment and insist that Harry come home with me. If Ron and I had been with him, I'm sure we could have stopped him before things went any further. Instead&mdash well, you've read the papers. I really can't tell you much more. I found out what happened same as everybody else, when the _Prophet_ reported that Malfoy Manor had burned to the ground. Harry turned himself in immediately after. He didn't even deny conjuring the Fiendfyre, even though it's prohibited. Oh, you didn't know about that? Yeah, he used the same spell that almost killed him in the Room of Requirement. I wonder if he thought it was fitting, seeing as he'd saved Malfoy that day…

No, I haven't talked to him at all. The trial was closed, obviously&mdashit would have been a media circus otherwise—and they kept him under close guard beforehand. He might be Harry Potter but he was still up on three counts of murder. Of course Ron and I were there. We wanted to be on hand in case they called for character witnesses&mdashas if anybody needed testimony on Harry's character&mdash. No, we weren't called, I don't think anyone was. The trial only took a few minutes. That's right, cleared of all charges. I have no idea what happened. We waited for Harry afterwards, but the second he was cleared, he disappeared back to the old house at Grimmauld Place. And we haven't seen him since.

I'm sorry, I've been talking this whole time and I know you have to get back to work. Are you sure you don't want any cake? No, I don't have any appetite for it either. Here, let me get this. No, please, it's the least I can do after monopolising the conversation. Are you Apparating back to Diagon? I'll walk with you, there's a good spot right just around the next corner. Back to Harry's? Oh, no, I've learned my lesson for the day. But I can't make any promises about tomorrow.

You asked why I keep trying to see him. I guess the real reason is that as long as someone keeps answering the door, I can believe he must be okay. That he hasn't done anything too drastic. I know, 'drastic' has lost its punch lately, hasn't it? But you know what I mean. We'd know if our best friend was gone, wouldn't we? I know, I know, he wouldn't do that. He couldn't. Not that. But really, who'd have thought he could do _any_ of this? Remember that movie I mentioned, _Titanic_? Sometimes I think it fits Harry. Back then, we thought that falling for Malfoy was the very worst thing that could happen. That turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. We had no idea how treacherous things really were. And we all assumed that Harry was unsinkable. Now I keep thinking of him alone in that gloomy house, with no one but Kreacher for company and those memories &mdash I don't know how anyone could stay afloat after that.

Well, here we are. No, I've still got to pick up some things for Ron&mdashhe's discovered Muggle sweets. I'll tell him, of course, and be sure to give the same to your father. And we'll do this again soon. Maybe I'll have better news then.

The End  
*****  
*****

  



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